


Haunt

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-10 13:53:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2027511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Halls of Mandos, Fingon is cursed to be able to speak to anyone but the one person he wants to speak to the most. In the years after the third kinslaying, Maglor has a dream one night that might not be a dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haunt

Maglor could feel himself slipping into the edges of a dream, his mind detached, afloat, as waves of sleep lapped and tugged at him. His waking thoughts were beginning to unspool about him when he heard a voice, quiet but insistent, from just beside the bed, by the window. He sat up, hands twitching towards his waist where his twin swords usually hung from his belt, before his sleep-fogged mind realised that they were not there. He blinked twice, cocking his head and regarding the figure silhouetted in the window coolly. He could see a shadow, shaped like a person looking outwards, haloed by the glow of the moon catching in the swiftly scudding clouds in the sky outside. Catching in the figure’s hair, in glinting chips of monochromatic brightness.

_Macalaurë._

The voice had little intonation; it was filled, instead, with an immeasurable weariness, a muted sorrow. But nevertheless it went through Maglor like a blade. The figure had not  _spoken_ , exactly, not in the usual way in which words travelled from the speaker’s mouth through the air to the listener’s ear. No, Maglor had heard the words, but as though they had been spoken inside his own head. He frowned. He knew that voice.

“Findekáno?” he asked tentatively into the silence.

 

The figure turned, and although there was no light he could see its face, or perhaps he simply  _knew_  who it was, in the strange way that one knows things in dreams. (Was he dreaming? He was almost certain he was. Did it matter? Perhaps not.)

“Why _… how_  are you here?” said Maglor. The question had not been the one he had thought to ask, even as it had slipped from his mouth, and Fingon seemed to know it.

_You mean why am I not speaking with Maitimo._

Maglor thought he saw Fingon’s face, already sorrowful, twist in pain a little. Maglor nodded.

 _I cannot,_  said Fingon slowly, and there was anger in his eyes now, frustration. Fingon’s – the shade’s – brow was furrowed, his hands balling into fists by his sides.  _Anyone else I can see, but not him. They will not_  – he seemed to be straining against some force that Maglor could not see – _they will not let me._

“They?” said Maglor. “Who? The Valar? Námo?”

Fingon nodded despairingly. He hesitated.  _I think it is a punishment. For Maitimo. For me._

Maglor’s opened his mouth, but no words came to him. It was cruel, he thought, but in a way, he realised, curiously detached from himself, he was not surprised.  They were both silent for a long time, staring at each other. Fingon’s eyes seemed to drink Maglor in hungrily.

“Are you angry at him?” said Maglor at last, cursing his own ineloquence even as he said it. Of course Fingon had every reason to be angry.

Fingon’s voice in his head was flat, uninflected.  _Yes._

“Are you angry at  _me_?”

_Yes._

“I’m sorry” said Maglor at last, when Fingon did not elaborate. He hated how inadequate the words sounded, but he knew not what else he could say. He longed to reach out to Fingon, to pull him into a hug, to ruffle his hair like he had when Fingon was small… they had sung together, and Maglor had taught Fingon the harp on the warm grass of the palace gardens in the light of Laurelin.  _Now it was dark save for the moon, and that world was long gone, and may as well have never existed, and Fingon was dead, and yet somehow he was here in this room…_

Maglor’s spiralling thoughts were interrupted by the force of Fingon’s stare at him. It was an odd thing, for though Fingon said nothing, projected no words into his head, and Maglor could barely see his face, he could almost sense what the shade was feeling, he realised. Every fibre of Fingon’s being was reaching out  _towards_  him, but not  _for_  him; for the living world, for everything Fingon had known and loved and lost. That Maglor still had. Fingon seemed to seethe with  _jealously_ , almost, and bitterness… but no, that was not quite it. Fingon simply yearned for life with such intensity it almost knocked Maglor backwards, a dead soul pushing desperately, hopelessly at the boundaries of his reality. A futile task, which Fingon must surely know.

“Finno” said Maglor gently, taking a deep breath. “You must know… we did not mean to let you die. We… we miscalculated…” he cringed once more, taking another steadying breath. “Do not blame Maitimo, anyway. Losing you almost destroyed him as it is. If you still love him…” he tailed off, seeing Fingon’s eyes close as if in pain again. “I’m sorry” Maglor said once more, in a quiet voice. “He still loves you, as he ever did” he added as an afterthought.

Neither said it had not been enough, but they were both thinking it.

Fingon raised his eyes. They were hollow, drawn of the colour they had once held, as blue as the summer sky. Maglor did not know if it was death or the stark moonlight that illuminated Fingon, but now they were simply bright-burning chips of silver, unyielding and inscrutable.

 _I failed_ , said Fingon, his voice dripping with uncharacteristic bitterness. _I should have led my people to victory and I failed._

“Finno… no, you didn’t, we - ”

Fingon gave a dismissive wave of his hand. _Not now, Macalaurë. Do you think I have not been through this myself, more times than any could count?_ He seemed to burn with frustration for a moment, before softening a little. _I just wanted to see you._

Something told Maglor that Fingon meant it as though he truly only did want to  _see_  him, not to speak to him. That Fingon had not wanted to be seen himself. Or perhaps, thought Maglor, Fingon himself did not know what he wanted. He was sure that he would not, if their situations were reversed.

“I’m here” said Maglor.

For a moment nothing happened. Then the corners of Fingon’s mouth twitched, and he raised a hand fractionally, as though he meant to reach out and touch Maglor’s arm, before appearing to change his mind, letting the hand drop back to his side.  _Thank you,_  was all he said. Maglor smiled, despite himself, despite everything.

At last Fingon spoke again.  _Will you tell Maitimo?_

“I…” in truth Maglor had not thought about it. “Do you want me to?” He thought about his brother. He would want to know about this, and yet for Maitimo these days the dark was only a knife-edge fall away, his heart and mind teetering precariously on the brink of functionality… the grief was pushed down inside him, Maglor knew, but could too easily bubble to the surface and strangle his bright brother in its cold grip, a death drawn out day by day. That was how it had been after –

 _I think it will hurt him,_  said Fingon.

“Yes” said Maglor after a time. “I think you’re probably right.”

_Do what you think is best. I will not hold you to any oath._

Maglor nodded, lips pressing together in a grim line, tears threatening to well in his eyes. Fingon’s eyes burned once more, and slowly he raised a pale hand, palm outwards, to Maglor. Hesitantly, Maglor raised his own hand to meet it. But when they would have touched, Maglor started as he felt nothing. Not skin, warm or cold, against his own, not even a stirring of a breeze. Just nothing.

Fingon’s eyes were filled with pain once more. Was he crying?  _Could_  he even cry? Pity washed over Maglor suddenly. “Findekáno - ”

_Goodbye, Macalaurë._

And then he was just  _gone_ , disappearing as Maglor blinked. He did not fade, or melt away slowly; he was simply there and then he was not.

The next thing Maglor knew he was waking, the golden-copper sunlight of early morning streaming through the window. The curtain was open, just as it had been the night before… he lay for a long time, thinking over the conversation. He was not even certain whether it had been a dream or not. And if it had been a dream, did that make a difference? Were the restless  _fëar_ of the dead able to contact the living through dreams? He did not know.

He was still mulling these things over as he entered the dining room, pausing in the doorway. Maedhros was seated at the side of the long table, empty breakfast plates and tea cups on the table, with Elrond on one knee. Elros sat underneath the table, stroking the black cat that wound its way through the legs of the table and chairs. Maedhros was talking to the twins, although Maglor could not quite make out their words. The scene was so jarringly domestic that it almost brought tears to Maglor’s eyes, banishing for a moment all thoughts of shades and death, loss and ruin.

His thoughts were interrupted by Elros running at his leg, wrapping short arms around Maglor’s thigh and hugging him, whilst dragging him towards the table.

Maedhros looked up, even giving Maglor one of his rare smiles.

“Good morning” said Maedhros. “You’re normally down here before the twins.” A slight frown of concern creased Maedhros’ scarred and pitted brow. “Is all well?”

Maglor paused for the briefest of moments, taking a breath. “Yes” he said. He wondered vaguely if he were a bad person, if he were a coward, before pushing the thought aside. “Yes, everything is fine.”

 _Not now_ , he thought.  _Some day I will tell him. But not now._


End file.
